rainbowlounge | RP Time? You betcha!

"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.

Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Who said anything about Catholicism?" Jack asked. "Or religion, for that matter? Confession is good for the soul, no matter what that soul is, or who takes it up at the end."

"Confession, the way you put it, implies at least modern Catholicism," he said absently, then took a deep breath. "I...killed a man, a long time ago."

Jack stayed silent, in response to that, but kept his face as even and unsurprised as possible. He was far from the first person Jack had met who had ended someone else's life; the only surprise was the inoffensive face of the man.

"I didn't intend it," he said, abruptly. "I was used by men who did, and someone I...someone I cared very much about...died, as a result."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Jack said, and meant it.

Edited 2013-05-20 01:52 (UTC)

"But if I hadn't done my part, he would...well, he wouldn't still be alive, it's been two thousand years, but...he wouldn't have died like...like that." He shivered, and his hand drifted up to his neck again.

"DId you know that at the time?" Jack wasn't sure that it would have been a bad thing even if he did know-- but he wondered, from this man's trembling.

He shook his head. "I didn't think they wanted him dead," he said, woodenly. "If I had, I never would have done it."

"So you didn't know," Jack said, clarifying more than anything else. "You thought you were doing... what?"

"Protecting him," he said. Then he laughed a little. "From them. I thought if...if we got him out of the public eye, just for a little while...they wouldn't have to hurt him. And I trusted that they wouldn't hurt him unless...unless there was no other choice.

"So you trusted the wrong people." Jack nodded. "A common failing, I am afraid. A dear friend of mine might have died, once, for trusting the wrong person."

He nodded. "And his death...the death I caused...it was horrible. I watched, part of it, but I..." He took a deep breath. "Then I hanged myself. It didn't work."

Ah. Jack knew the depths of despair that led you to the noose, but... well. "So you died for your sin," he said, thoughtfully. "It seems atonement to me."

He shook his head. "I didn't die. My...my daughter, she cut me down. And I haven't been able to since then. And nothing can atone for what I did."

"Well, not with that attitude," Jack said, his tone dry as a desert. "In all seriousness, though. I am not... I know what the demons in your soul can say." And he was not a demon, not in the strictest of senses, and certainly not what most of them meant. "I know how they can lie."

"It's not just in my head," he said. "It's a common consensus, among people who know my story. And very, very many people do know it."

RP Time? You betcha!

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

Re: tw: references to past suicide attempts

TW: explicit description of past suicide attempt

Re: TW: explicit description of past suicide attempt

Re: TW: explicit description of past suicide attempt

Re: TW: explicit description of past suicide attempt

Re: TW: explicit description of past suicide attempt